


Security

by CaraLee



Series: Fantasy AU [7]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Cultural Exposition, Gen, What Makes Jason Todd Tick?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-14
Updated: 2015-10-14
Packaged: 2018-04-25 13:45:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4962883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaraLee/pseuds/CaraLee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Iason's second night in the house of Lord Varius. A sort of a tag to A Growth in the Family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Security

**Author's Note:**

> So...I'm working on Chapter 2 of Little Bird (in which the titular character actually appears) as well as a story about the Titans. And this happened somehow, so here it is. Mostly I was thinking about some of the laws surrounding citizenship and what exactly makes someone _safe_ in this version of the world.  
>  This AU is taking over my life, I swear.

When the door closes behind the elderly steward this time, Iason releases a slow breath and approaches the bed. Folded neatly on the carved wooden chest at the end is a long, plain shirt that Iason pokes at in confusion. It seems a pointless sort of garment, in no way suitable to be worn in public. Not by the standards of the inhabitants of this place at least. 

Eventually, he gives up trying to figure it out and turns to the bed itself. A moment of hesitation and then he cautiously toes off his new shoes and, even more cautiously, crawls up onto it. It is unbelievably soft, the surface sinking beneath him like he imagines a cloud would, the thick, green blanket poofing up around his hands so that he can't even see his fingers. He lifts up the edge and slips beneath it, drawing a sharp breath at the comfortable warmth.

Everything here is so wondrous, the food, the clothes, the _house-castle-palace_ , the...the security. He closes his eyes and sees the documents in his imagination, still hardly able to believe that they are real. He'd had papers before of course, though he'd never seen them, tucked away in some hidden nook for safekeeping. After his mam died he hadn't been able to find them and had eventually given up. Not that most of the human monsters that stalked the streets cared whether the children they grabbed were citizens or not. It was easy enough to cover up the stealing of a few unwanted brats.

This though...He can't help but feel safe now. If Lord Varius had some nefarious designs, why would he go into the city, to The Courts, to draw up documents for him. _Adoption_ papers at that. There is no way that people don't know about this, that, more than the papers themselves, means that Iason is...this is... _real_.

His mam had told him once that, before she was born, maybe half-a-century before Iason himself was born, there had been no laws of protection. Slavers raided unchecked upon  any land not their own (and sometimes even there). No one was safe.

A treaty had been signed, between the Metros Empire with its protectorates, the Western Kingdom, and the Black Islands. A treaty of peace and mutual respect, no citizen of any of the three dominions would be in danger from either of the others, whether in trade, or life, or freedom. It was a treaty that had remained in effect, if only barely at times, for much longer than any before it. It was that treaty that gave citizens of the Islands protection on their own streets as well as abroad. If you were a citizen, you were safe.

And everyone born within the borders was a citizen. Almost everyone. Only a few groups of Fae Folk were included in the treaty he knew, and not all humans. The people from other lands, not part of the treaty. And...almost reluctantly his thoughts turn to Dika. Goldie. Gypsies are safe nowhere, not really. Claimed by no land, wanted by no people. He wonders if Dika had been stolen, where he was from? Had he been born here, in the shadows? In the West? The Empire? Or elsewhere?

He pushes the thoughts from his mind, or tries to anyway. Deep inside, he feels the rising of the anger he has had to stifle for so long so that he could survive. The anger he has channeled while cutting purses and lifting valuables from the fat, rich, masters of the land. So much of life isn't fair. These great lords and ladies, locked up in their fine palaces, caring not who they trample underfoot in their political and social pursuits. (Not Lord Varius so much, now that he knows he's The Bat. At least he's trying.)

Iason is safe now, part of this glittering world that pretends it is so far removed from the filth of the streets. But what about Floriana and Inga and the other girls at the "houses" just outside the city wall? Who keeps them safe from men with fat purses and greedy thoughts? Who cares about Paula or Amyntas and his brothers and sisters; orphaned by the daemon that haunts the islands, his madman's laughter filling everyone's nightmares, rich and poor alike? Who cares about people like Dika and Myrinne (who snuck food to the street children) and the scars on their skin? Who cared about his mam as she slowly wasted away under the double curse of her illness and the cravings for that foul concoction?

He cares. And someday he will make it right.

**Author's Note:**

> While I'm writing the part about Dika, "Say Something" by A Great Big World begins playing. Now I'm depressed.  
> (Happier fic is coming! I promise! Titans! Happy baby superheroes!)


End file.
